steemit is an exact copy of the current social model in most western environments .
You have the incrowd you have to roll with , if you don't one or two people can make sure "you never get a job in town again"
so learn to roll over if you're here for the money ... the term whale comes directly from the financial marketing world ... referring to entities SO big its impossible to go against as a smaller on ... one person who's overweight enough can ruin your rep in a matter of minutes, two can do it faster doesnt matter if there's 350.000 who either didnt care or didnt dislike
very IRL ... on top of that you can "buy" voting power, which makes it as lobby as can be, as for the censorship, i find my posts not liked by the in-crowd or extortion bots (o yea lets not forget the "pay for votes" and "pay or else" and "pay and i will gladly help you off the blacklist (my other bot put you on))
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i find those posts "hidden" NOT CENSORED, ofcourse not, 'hidden' ... i hear accounts locked 'not censored' or 'kicked' but LOCKED
this goes nowhere but in the pockets of the 1% its the standard social model all over ... this is NOT anarchy okay, this is a few rich dictating whats cool to say and what is not and most abiding by that, if you can find anything closer to your western standard model let me know.
i suppose there will be startups building on the idea and using a more balanced system so i stay here just to scout out interesting people since i'm sure they will switch just as fast, or "fork" more like to use crypto-mumbo
That, mah frends, is my honest observation
comply or die, roll over or you'll never get a job again, BUY voting power, BUY votes ... PAY "or else" ... the prom queen and jock strap alpha will tell you how to walk
oh
have you noticed how i don't downvote this ? despite the fact that i completely disagree, i got lured here by the salespitch too but i dont really thrive in places where others get to tell me what to say to i quickly found that out, one american dyke and one nazibot was all it took, one vote on each of my first posts the first day by some i dont know twat bitch from california, and one from some extortion/blacklist bot b/c i shared an article on cloud mining and put a referral code in it ... now i didnt get a warning or anything on how his precious community feels (they must have elected him to be a spokesman or something, i suspect it follows up with a friendly namebot telling me i just need to pay x to @ to "get off the blacklist") well i don't downvote this despite the fact that i COMPLETELY disagree, especially with the non censorhip and referral to anarchy .. .and actually with everything in it since its nothing but a copy of the model most of you (and me) all live in while AFK
i don't , i should be bitter but i don't downvote, thats called freedom of speech and opinion, what i DO do ?
i mute all those scambots, i mute the whole incrowd, i keep only the people who think are real on my feed and i ignore all the rest, i am NOT a guiding member of the community nor will i ever be
someone needs to read up on anarchy , it means "no one is in charge" it does not mean whales and minnows ruled by the power of the dollar ... there we are, my not-so-incrowd-not-so-mainstream yet somewhat educated opinion on the matter
Thanks. It's really useful for me to have comments like yours as I don't want this place to be an echo chamber. It's very thought provoking. It also reminds me of something that has been running in the background for the past 20 years in my mind ever since I met a weird guru type called John de ruiter. He put a seed in my head which has never left, about how we end up becoming attached to ideas through investment in them. I notice that with steemit which leads me to WANT it to be the best thing since sliced bread. Maybe you're right about it all. Maybe it's just as bad as the system. Maybe not.
I have thought a little more about what you say here. As I say above, its a game - a social experiment. And like the social experiment we live in, it involves humans which always complicates matters. You've only been invovled for a very short time. If you dont like the platform then perhaps leave. But if you like it in principle, it may be worth learning and researching how the game works. As I said at the end of the article though, perhaps money needs to be eliminated from our culture to sort out our problems. But so far, i am enjoying the game and although you are correct that most of the 'power' is concentrated at the top, for the most part most of the 'whales' are helping people on the platform.
@dannyshine, a very nice read, especially the comments from @rudyardcatling, As an advocate of steemit, and a person who wants it to be all the good it potentially can be, I hear all of these sentiments with a struggle and reluctantly agree that they are accurate, all be it negative sentiments. There are, however in my opinion, far more positives and potentials than negatives, as with any social experiment, you have to take the rough with the smooth. I am trying to influence positive behaviors on the platform from whales and minnows alike though several initiatives i support, these may or may not work. I think a long term view, only risk what you can afford to lose and seeing what mischief you can get up to on here in a way to enjoy the experience, is my advice. additionally i would like to say that it is not nice that a lot of steem is concentrated with whales, however, it does not matter how you look at it, they are the ones that took the risk and have given the steem price its present value. At our (humans) current level of wisdom, this is the best system we have come up with so far to reward risk takers and incentivize value creation. If there is another let me know, if you want to distribute steem to other members, that is exactly what is going on now with whales up voting minnows. if you want a new platform that does this from the start, good luck finding investors to support the value reward token's price. in all very interesting and thought provoking! STEEMON!